Roslindale Monogatari

Our family has enjoyed attending New Bedford's Summerfest and the Lowell Folk Festival since we moved to Boston (almost) ten years ago. This year, for the first time, we attended the American Folk Festival in Bangor. As it turns out, this year our favorite Cajun group, the Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band was making its only appearance in the northeast quarter of North America there. Over the three days of the festival, we caught all three performances of the BDCB and the accordion workshop Bruce participated in. We also got to chat a bit with both Bruce and with Gina Forsyth (the band's phenomenal fiddle player). Of course, lots more went on at the festival -- so much so that there were some groups that we never got to hear (except briefly in passing). Even so, we heard the Dixie Hummingbirds, two Eskimo throat singers (Nukarik), a band led by the son of a blues guitarist we used to hear long ago in Chicago (Bernard Allison), a group of "New Orleans Indians" (Big...

Higanbana / Equinox Flower (Yasujio Ozu, 1958) After the crushing rejection of his magnificently bleak Tokyo Twilight , Ozu tried again to present his version of "Father Doesn't Know Best" -- this time as a comedy. While Ineko Arima once again appeared as a daughter at odds with her father, Shin Saburi was given the role of the father. So long as Saburi is talking about other peoples' children, he supports the right of young women to make their own decisions. In particular, he tries to reconcile a friend (chishu Ru) with a daughter (Yoshiko Kuga) who has moved in with her boyfriend without the benefit of marriage. But when his own eldest daughter picks a husband without getting his prior approval, Saburi goes ballistic. Luckily for Arima, in this film she has a supportive mother (Kinuyo Tanaka) and an ingenious friend (Fujiko Yamamoto), who support her cause. The best performances here are all excellent, but those of Tanaka and Saburi are especially wonderful. T...